Gus's Past
by TvGeek98
Summary: When Gus begins to question his past, everybody in The Dumping Ground starts to find themselves revealing all of their deepest, darkest secrets, and everybody begins to grow closer...
1. Chapter 1

**Gus's Past**

**A Tracy Beaker Returns Fanfic **

Chapter 1:

It was a usual day in the Dumping Ground. It was half past 4 in the afternoon, so all the kids had all just got back from school, and had begun to go upstairs to their rooms, and help each other with homework. Gus was usually very keen to get his homework done, but today there was something else on his mind…..

Gus went to find Mike in his office.

'Oh, hey Gus, how was school? Do you need any help with your homework?' Mike honestly didn't see that there would be any other reason for Gus to be in his office at that time unless he needed help. After all, that was Gus's 'homework time.'

'School was fine Mike, and NO, I do not need help with my homework.' Replied Gus, as homework was not important to him at that moment in time.

'Oh, ok then, erm, what can I help you with?' Mike asked this as he knew that Gus would not come into his office without good reason to do so.

'I need to know why I live here.' Gus announced, without even flinching. This threw Mike completely, and he struggled to think of what to say next.

'Umm, well, alright Gus, you have the right to know, but you might want to sit down. What's brought all this on?' Mike was completely shocked. Gus had been put into the care of Elm Tree house when he was 2 years old; he was now 13, but had never asked about, or even mentioned his past.

'What do you mean, WHERE has it come from? It has not come from anywhere. I was talking to some friends at school about families, they all seemed to have a Mum and a Dad, and some of them had brothers and sisters too, like Johnny and Tee. Why do I live here with you and not with my family?' Gus was desperate to know the truth. He had never even thought about it before, but now he was curious, and wanted to find out more about his family.

Mike had no idea how to even begin to explain all of this to Gus, so, because Gina was helping Carmen, Tee and Lily with homework, Mike allowed Gus to take his file to look at, as he knew that there was no way Gus was going to give in otherwise.

Gus took the file and wondered upstairs to read it, and for the first time in his life, he became upset and confused at what he saw there…..


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2:

Gus was sat in his room, reading his file in great depth when he heard a knock at the door.

'Who is it?' He shouted, as he did not particularly want to be disturbed, but could do with some help to understand what it was he was reading, and whether it was normal for parents to do this.

'It's me!' Came the sound of Johnny's voice from behind the door. 'I have algebra homework, and was wondering if you would be able to help me.'

Gus thought about this for a moment, and then shouted back;

'If I help you with your algebra homework, will you help me with something?' This confused Johnny, as Gus never usually needed help with anything, but he agreed to it anyway, as he (nor any of the other kids in the house for that matter), really could not get his head around x2-y6h+3qr.

Gus hid his file underneath his pillow, and spent the next half hour talking Johnny through how to do his equations.

'Wow!' Johnny thought to himself, 'Gus is better at teaching me than my teacher is!'

When they had finished the algebra, Johnny was just about to get up and go, when he remembered Gus's compromise:

'So, what was it you needed me to help you with?'

'Why do you live here?' Johnny had just taken a sip of water, and this question nearly made him spit it out everywhere, but he managed to swallow it, as he was in Gus's room, and Gus would have gone completely mad if he had of spit it out. Johnny was about to just get up calmly and leave the room, but first of all wanted to know if there was a good enough reason for Gus to be asking him that, or whether he was just being nosy.

'Well,' Gus replied. 'I have been reading my file, and want to know if what my parents did was normal or not.'

Johnny had wondered for years what had happened before Gus arrived at The Dumping Ground, so, although he did not want to talk to Gus about his own past, he thought that this would be the perfect time to find out what really went on in Gus's. Pretty soon the two of them were reading Gus's file, and uncovering facts about themselves and each other, that they had never known before, or had never spoken to anybody else about. For some reason, Johnny felt fine, happy even, to talk to Gus about his past. He did not understand why, but he actually enjoyed getting the chance to talk to someone about it all, somebody who would just take what he was told as a fact; and not judge anybody else by it.

By the time tea was ready, however, Gus was still not satisfied. Johnny was in care for a completely different reason to him, and he did not know who would be the best person to explain everything to him in a way in which he would understand. He decided to investigate further after tea…..


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3:

Gus knocked on the door of Lily and Carmen's room, and entered with his notebook when they said that it was fine for him to come in.

'Hey Gus, what's up.' Carmen asked, giggling as usual because Lily had just made her laugh.

'The ceiling, the sky, the clouds; why are you asking me that?' Let's just say that Gus was not quite familiar with this figure of speech.

'Never mind.' Carmen, who was still giggling said quickly, in an attempt to move the conversation on.

'I need to know exactly why both of you are here, starting from the very beginning.' Gus declared. Both Carmen and Lily's mouths dropped open in shock. Gus asked some pretty strange questions sometimes, but he had never dreamt of asking anything like that before. Or maybe he had, but just hadn't felt the need to. Either way, the girls were astonished.

'Why do you need to know that Gus?' Lily eventually asked him.

'I have been reading my file, and I need to know if what my parents did to me is similar to what anybody else's parents did to them.'

'What did your parents do to you?' Carmen said this without really thinking before hand.

'CARMEN!' Lily exclaimed, amazed at what had just come out of her best friend's mouth.

'Well he asked us first!'

'Can you please just answer my question?' Gus said, as he was beginning to get slightly frustrated at the girls for seemingly ignoring him.

'I really don't want to talk about it.' Lily replied, and Carmen nodded her head in agreement.

'PLEASE!' Gus almost shouted, but as he did not like loud noises, he just said it with a lot of emphasise instead.

'WELL WE DON'T HAVE TO TELL YOU IF WE DON'T WANT TO!' Carmen yelled, making absolutely no effort whatsoever to be quiet. Lily yanked Carmen down by the arm, as Gus stormed out of the room, slamming the door behind him. Lily and Carmen sat in silence.

Gus retuned a few minutes later, this time with his file. For the first time in his life, he opened the door without knocking, and slammed his file down on one of the beds.

'There! Now you can see for yourselves!' Gus insisted on sitting down next to them, and watched their reactions very closely as they rifled through his file…..


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4:

'Are you seriously telling me that you didn't know about any of this Gus?' Lily asked, astounded that he had only just found all of this out.

'How could I?' Gus asked, confused. 'I was only 2 when it happened, it is impossible for you to remember anything that happened to you before the age of 3.'

'Yes but still.' Said Carmen; 'Surely someone must have told you?'

'Why would somebody have told me, if I never asked?' Gus was again, confused by one of the girls' statements.

They looked at and discussed Gus's file and past with him for the next few minutes, and then Gus asked the question that both of them were dreading answering.

'So what about your past then? I have told you about mine, so if you know what happened in yours, then you need to tell me.' Both of the girls were seriously hoping that the other would go first. Neither of them did.

'Well then?' Gus was getting impatient now.

'Well, the thing is Gus….' Lily began, trying to think of what to say next.

'We don't really want to talk about the bad stuff that's happened to us.' Carmen finished off for her. Johnny knocked the door at that exact moment, and both Carmen and Lily could not help letting out a small sigh of relief.

'Is Tee in there?' Johnny asked, opening the door at the same time.

'Can you see her?' Lily asked him sarcastically.

'Oh, hey Gus, what are you doing in here?' Johnny thought it best to completely change the subject, as he could not think of anything witty enough to say to Lily.

'Thought you needed to find Tee?' Carmen butted in quickly, as she really didn't want the subject to be brought up again, and, by the look on Lily's face, she didn't want that either. Johnny, however, did not quite get the hint. Well, nor did Gus, but that's nothing unusual. Since they did not get the hint, Johnny and Gus ignored the girls and began to chat.

'I'm asking them the same question that I asked you, but they won't answer me.' Gus's voice showed no emotion whatsoever, and Johnny found it difficult to tell whether Gus was bothered about this or not.

'Umm, Lily, Carmen, can I have a word with both of you in private please?' Johnny then managed to convince Carmen and Lily to talk to Gus as he had done, because he thought that it was important for Gus to start finding out about his old life; and that if he needed other people to help him understand that better, then that should be the case. Carmen and Lily still weren't happy to be talking about these things, but both of them felt sorry for Gus so they agreed that they would help him anyway.

After listening closely to both of them, and making some notes as he went along to help himself to remember, he eventually looked at Carmen and said:

'Well your story is a bit like mine, but not the same.' He then continued: 'But why did my parents do it? I can't help the way I am.' Neither Lily nor Carmen knew what to say next, but then Lily had an idea. She pulled an old Barbie doll of Carmen's out from under the bed. 'See this doll?' She said. 'This is a perfect Barbie doll, right?'

'Yes…' Gus replied. 'But I really don't see what this has to do with anything.'

'I haven't finished yet.' Lily replied. 'Anyway, back to the doll. So, Carmen used to love playing with this doll, because it looks pretty. Right Carmen?'

'Right.' Carmen said bluntly. She was beginning to see where Lily was going with this. Gus, on the other hand, was still clueless. Lily continued.

'But,' She began. 'If the doll looked like this….' Lily then proceeded to pull off one of the dolls legs, arms, and a big clump of hair. She was half expecting Carmen to kick up a fuss, but much to her relief, she didn't. Normally she would have done, but, as she knew what Lily was doing, she managed to keep quiet.

'Carmen wouldn't have wanted to play with her any more.' Lily explained. 'Because the doll isn't perfect, she probably would have been thrown in the bin. Some people are like that with humans. If they don't think that we're perfect, then they dump us here.' Lily was quite proud of her self for that explanation. Gus still didn't get it.

'But I don't look like that. And none of this applies to you anyway Lily.'

'Yes, I know, I was just trying to… Urhhh, never mind, I give up.' Lily could not think of any other way of explaining it to him, so Gus went to find Mike again.

'Hey Gus, how are you?' Mike asked him.

'I'm fine Mike, but I think you need to take Lily to the doctors.' The expression on Mike's face changed, and he looked worried.

'Really? Why? What's the matter?'

'She thinks that I only have one leg, one arm, and a big clump of hair missing. I know that I don't, because I looked in the mirror this morning.' Mike couldn't help but burst out laughing. Gus did not understand what was so funny, so he just stood there until Mike had stopped.

'Oh, you're a funny boy.' Mike told him, as he ruffled his hair and told him to go and watch TV before bed. Gus was left more confused than ever that evening, as he could not understand what made him funny, why Lily thought that he only had one arm, one leg, and a big clump of hair missing, or, most importantly of all, why his parents didn't want him.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5:

When Gus woke up the next day, which was a Thursday, he did not feel like going to school. This was unusual, as he normally loved getting dressed in his smart uniform and going off on the bus to learn. Most people hated it, but he did not know why.

Today was different for Gus. He did not want to learn about the area of a triangle, or about all the different countries in Africa. He wanted to learn more about his past, his family, and the in depth backgrounds to the rest of The Dumping Ground's residents. Unfortunately for him, the rest of the kids did not agree. Lily, Carmen and Johnny had already talked enough, and there was no way of getting them to say any more about their lives. The rest of them did not want to talk (to be honest, at that time in the morning, they weren't really listening, they were just focusing on getting dressed), and, although he wanted to talk to Tracy, she was upstairs in Elektra's bedroom trying to determine why Elektra was point blank refusing to get out of bed.

'Gus, could you PLEASE just get ready for school!' Mike asked frustratedly, for about the 20th time.

'But I already know how to find the area of a triangle!' Gus argued with him, and actually raised his voice, which was something that he never EVER normally did.

'You remind me of a certain someone when they were younger.' Mike said, moving his eyes upwards to indicate that it was Tracy Beaker, who was still currently upstairs.

'Speaking of which,' Mike began quietly, 'Any luck up there Tracy?' He yelled that bit up the stairs, to make sure that Tracy heard him.

'Nope.' She yelled back down, 'There's no budging her.'

'Let me talk to her.' Gus suggested. 'There must be a reason for her not wanting to get out of bed. I will find it. I need to talk to her about something else anyway.'

'No Gus, I don't think that will be necessary.' Mike told him. Gus eventually gave in and got ready for school, making a note to remind himself to talk to Elektra when he got home.

An hour later, everybody apart from Elektra had gone off to school. Tracy was sat talking to her, as she had eventually convinced her to at least talk to somebody about whatever was on her mind. Turned out that what Gus had been asking everybody had reminded her of things she had been trying to forget, things that she had kept at the very back of her mind for months, even years now. This had caused her to dream about things, and not nice dreams, dreams that reminded her. Consequently, she did not get much sleep, and therefore wanted to stay in bed all day. Tracy said that she understood, and that Elektra could stay in bed and get some rest. Usually she would have been suspicious, but the look in Elektra's eyes seemed to tell Tracy that she was telling the truth for once. Tracy was right.

'Oh, and Tracy?' Elektra asked, as Tracy was about to leave the room.

'Yeah?'

'Please don't tell Mike about, well, you know.'

'I'll tell him you're ill.' Tracy said, and that's exactly what she did.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6:

'I wonder what's up with Elektra.' Tee said when the rest of them were on the bus back from school.

'Probably just didn't want to go.' Lily commented. 'You know what she's like.'

'But she's very clever.' Gus told them. 'She's almost as clever as me. Why would she want to miss school?'

'Why did YOU want to miss school this morning Gus?' Johnny asked him, wondering what his excuse would be.

'Because I wanted to find out about my family. Elektra already knows about hers, so there should be no reason for her to stay at home.' The bus stopped at the nearest bus stop to Elm Tree House, and all of The Dumping Ground kids got off and walked home.

'What's up with Elektra?' Jody asked Tracy, the second they had got in through the door. She had been too busy eating a packet of chocolate chip cookies on the bus to hear the conversation between the others.

'Ill.' Tracy told them. 'Threw up everywhere just after you'd left this morning, it wasn't pretty.' She lied. All of the kids pulled faces and went to get on with their homework. Tracy stopped Lily and Carmen and pulled them aside.

'Listen you two. Elektra needs a friend right now, why don't you go up and see how she's doing; I haven't seen her since lunchtime.' Lily and Carmen were confused. Was Tracy seriously suggesting that they should go and spend time with someone who's probably contagious?

'Why?' Lily asked. 'We all get ill sometimes, it doesn't mean she should be given special treatment, it's probably only one of those 24 hour bug things.' Tracy sighed, lowered her voice, bent down and said:

'She's not ill.'

'Then what's wrong with her?' Carmen wanted to get her homework out of the way, and really couldn't be bothered hanging around here being told first one thing, then another by Tracy.

'Look.' Tracy lowered her voice even further. 'She's been having flashbacks. Gus's questions reminded her of things she had been trying so hard to forget. Please, just go and talk to her; but don't tell her that I told you, let her tell you for herself.'

So that's exactly what Lily and Carmen did, they went to talk to Elektra. Her face was tear stained when they entered her room, and she was lay on her bed, staring up at the ceiling. She didn't even notice that Lily and Carmen had entered the room, until they came and sat down on her bed next to her. They talked to her about random stuff for a while, to try and cheer her up. Eventually she said:

'Guess Tracy told you I was ill.' Carmen was about to say what they already knew, but Lily jumped in before her.

'Yep, sick everywhere. She said it was nasty.'

'That's not what really happened.' Elektra told them the same thing Tracy had.

'So what did?' Lily asked her. She was much better at going along with this story than Carmen was. Lily and Carmen had agreed that Carmen would sit in silence; otherwise she might end up saying something that she shouldn't.

Elektra told them everything she had told Tracy and more. Lily asked her questions every now and then, and Carmen just sat there rubbing her arm for comfort. It didn't help in the slightest; Elektra just got annoyed with her. She said nothing about it though, as she didn't want to upset Carmen.

When she had finished talking, the room fell silent, as none of them could think what to say next.

'I think you should talk to Gus.' Lily said eventually, shocking both Carmen and Elektra.

'Talk to GUS!' Elektra exclaimed in astonishment. 'He's what caused all this in the first place!'

'Exactly.' Lily said. 'That's why you should talk to him. Your story is similar to his, which means he will definitely want to hear about it.'

'What's in it for me?' Elektra asked her, still not sounding at all convinced.

'Gus stops bothering you, you can push all of these things to the back of your mind and forget about them again, and Gus feels slightly better about himself because he can tick you off his list of people to ask AND, as an added bonus, your story is quite similar to his, so he'll be pleased that he is not the only one who has had that sort of thing happen to him.'

'Ok.' Elektra gave in. 'But I want both of you and Tracy here when I speak to him. She's the only other person that knows.' Carmen opened her mouth to say 'We know' but Lily elbowed her hard in the ribs, so she pretended to yawn instead. (It would have looked weird if she'd opened her mouth then randomly closed it again)

'Come on then, let's go and get some tea shall we?' Lily and Carmen hadn't realised that tea would be ready in about 2 minutes until they saw the big clock on Elektra's wall. They had to have tea at exactly the same time every night because Gus didn't like his routine changed.

'Ah ah ah.' Carmen said, waggling her finger at Elektra.

'You're ill, remember?' Lily continued.

'Alright, alright.' Elektra laughed 'But bring me a couple of slices of pizza!'


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7:

An hour later, Tracy, Gus, Lily (Who had called her Dad to ask if she could sleep there that evening and had already been home to collect her stuff), Carmen and Elektra were all gathered in Elektra's room, Elektra ready to tell Gus lots about her past, to help him and so that he would leave her alone.

She looked through his file, which he had bought with him to show her, then began to talk to him about everything, even including the flashbacks she had been having. She was nervous at first, and resistant to tell him anything, but after a while she got into it, and it all started to run off her tongue. No matter how hard she tried to keep certain things to herself, the sort of things she used to do when she got angry, she couldn't help letting them slip. Like Johnny, she too somehow felt comfortable talking to Gus, who listened, never interrupted and took everything in without judging. About halfway through tears began to slide down her face, as she recalled how upset she got when she used to run away, or break things when she had even the slightest argument with anyone. Tracy put her arm around her and said that she did not have to say any more, but Elektra insisted on finishing. At the end, Gus simply scribbled down a few notes, muttered something to himself, then got up and left the room without saying a word. Tracy, Lily and Carmen then left Elektra on her own for a bit, and Lily and Carmen went to get on with their homework.

Tracy went downstairs to find Gus in the office with Mike, telling him everything Elektra had said.

'Hey, what do you thing you're doing!' Tracy yelled as she burst through the door. 'People told you those things in private!' Gus and Mike just stared at her.

'Actually Tracy,' Mike began. 'I asked Gus how he was doing, and he came to speak to me because he was confused about a few things he had found, and about some of the stuff people had told him, because none of it is exactly the same as his.'

'Oh.' Tracy said, feeling a little bit guilty for shouting at Gus. She had thought he had just decided to tell Mike everything about everyone for the sake of it!

'I hear that Elektra isn't ill after all.' Mike said, wondering what Tracy's excuse for lying to him would be.

'Ummm, yeah, about that…..'

'You didn't need to lie to me Tracy; if you'd told me then I could have helped her. What were you thinking; keeping something like that from me, it's my job to know the truth about the people living here, and YOUR job to tell me if anything is wrong.'

'I know Mike, and I'm sorry, but she made me promise not to tell!' Tracy exclaimed.

'Ok, fair enough, if you were keeping a promise, but next time I want to know!' Tracy muttered a quick 'ok' to Mike and then left to see how Lily and Carmen were getting on with their homework, and Mike got up, and called up the stairs:

'HOUSE MEETING IN THE LIVING ROOM!' So everybody came down from upstairs and gathered in the living room.


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8:

'Ok guys.' Mike began. Everyone was listening intently.

'Gina and I have noticed a few things that have been different lately. It comes after a certain young man decided to ask lots of people in here about personal things that they do not wish to think about.' Gus looked at the floor.

'Anyway.' Mike continued.

'This appears to have caused rather a stir in the house. Some people have been getting upset.' He looked at Elektra as he said this.

'And some people have ended up having to tell other people's secrets.' He looked first at Gus, then at Tracy.

'Either way, I'm sure that this person did not mean to cause trouble. What's said is said, and all that's important now is that you all realise this: It doesn't matter if your past is not the same as somebody else's.' He looked at Gus again.

'Nor does it matter what bad things you have done in the past.' He looked at Elektra for the second time. 'All that matters is that you are here now, and we are here to be like family to one another. So next time anyone asks you about your family, any of you, you tell them that all of us are your family, understood?'

'What, so you want us to lie?' Gus asked, confused.

'No Gus.' Tracy replied. 'What Mike means is, you don't tell them we're your brothers or sisters or anything like that, you tell them that you have a big group of people who care for you like a family, and that that's all that matters. Got it?' Gus smiled and nodded his head.

'Got it.' He said.

'And the same goes for all of you.' Tracy told them. 'You do have a family, us lot. Ok?' Everybody smiled and nodded.

'Ok.' They said in unison.

Everybody left the table, happier than before. Mike pulled Elektra aside to talk to her about her dreams, and said that she should always come to him in future. She left the room happy that she was finally accepted somewhere.

Everybody went to bed slightly happier than before that night, as they dwelled on the events of the past 24 hours. They all now felt that they had a family, and no longer thought about themselves as different to everyone else. For some reason, after that day, they all grew much closer, and started being nicer to each other (even Elektra, who was NEVER nice to anyone). Whenever anyone asked them about their families, they were proud to say that they had one, and never felt left out of conversations any more.

Turns out that Gus, of all people, had managed to make the whole of The Dumping Ground a better place. Who would've thought it?


End file.
